Komani men step up
Group pose naked to highlight GBV
As the country continues to mourn victims of gender-based violence, a group of Komani men spent Father’ s Day in honour of all women amd children.
Local entrepreneur and the movement’ s chairperson, Thulani Koyana, launched the Trust Ground SA with a group of other men on Father’ s Day, to pay homage to all women and children, especially victims and survivors of GBV.
Posing nude with just placards with messages of support covering their private parts, the men stepped out to put themselves in a vulnerable position to draw attention to GBV.
“Part of the movement s objective is to re-build trust between men, women and children - to say being naked is not an invitation for violation of one’ s body.
“Women and children all over the country are faced with the scourge of potentially being raped, beaten or even killed at the hands of men and we are saying not in my name ’.
“We need to end the war against women and children and that will need each man to step up and do something about it, and this was our first gesture to indicate our support for women.”
Koyana said the movement was launched on Father’ s Day which is normally meant to celebrate men, to emphasise the need for men to be part of the solution and not the problem. We hoped to conduct nude photo “shoots for 45 men per town in the country, but those who had shown interest initially pulled out due to the nature of the shoot.
“We ended up with a group of six men in Komani who went through with it and for me that was a success. Posing naked is not easy.
“Women continue to be preyed upon by men, even with their clothes on.”
The photos, which were posted on the movement's Facebook page, received mixed reactions, with some people supporting the cause and others questioning how men posing naked could help curb GBV.
“We knew there would be some negative comments, but we mainly received support from many people and posting the photos online did what we hoped for, getting people talking about the initiative.”
Koyana said the Trust Ground SA team was working on raising funds which would provide employment to 405 people who would visit victims and survivors of GBV to try assist them. “We will be knocking on doors of relevant institutions, asking for assistance for what we plan to do.”